Bibi Ayisha, Eleven Years Old, Is an Afghan Refugee Studying at a School for Girls in Kot Chandana Refugee Village, Pakistan
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Bibi Ayisha, eleven years old, is an Afghan refugee studying at a school for girls in Kot Chandana refugee village, Pakistan. UNHCR/Sebastian Rich 148 UNHCR Global Report 2015 BUILDING BETTER FUTURES The ultimate objective of UNHCR’s work is to seek durable solutions for those who are forced to flee from conflict and serious human rights violations. Nevertheless, it can take years before it is safe for displaced populations to return home, or to find a new place they can call home. And so it is fundamental to help these individuals and communities to retain a sense of human dignity and hope for the future. UNHCR works to empower refugees and other people of concern and to help them maximize their potential for growth and development. The Office assists in this process by promoting access to education, skills training and productive livelihoods. The organization continues to promote more inclusive, sustainable and development-oriented approaches to programming for refugees. In addition, UNHCR continues to facilitate resettlement for refugees with specific protection needs that cannot be addressed in the country where they have sought asylum. In this chapter: • Multi-year planning for solutions • Complementary pathways to protection and solutions • Promoting access to inclusive and quality education • Facilitating voluntary repatriation in safety and dignity • Building self-reliance • Enabling access to energy UNHCR Global Report 2015 149 BUILDING BETTER FUTURES UNHCR/Frederic Noy MULTIYEAR PLANNING FOR SOLUTIONS The number of people of concern to working with all levels of government UNHCR today continues to rise at and with a wide array of partners on a higher rate than comprehensive strategies designed to achieve concrete, durable solutions are being realized. longer-term protection and solutions UNHCR takes a progressive approach objectives. to solutions that entails incorporating solutions-oriented planning into the The pilots will provide an evidence-base early stages of displacement and that to improve support to other operations recognizes that truly durable solutions already moving towards multi-year for all population groups require long- planning and to identify and design term investments, through multi-year, any necessary changes to planning, multi-partner strategies that address the budgeting and reporting systems. The four dimensions of a solution: the legal, pilot will serve as the first step towards the economic, the social-cultural and the adapting to a planning and programming civil-political. environment that recognizes the longevity of displacement and UNHCR has launched a multi-year statelessness situations and, therefore, planning pilot to explore how the the necessity of direct and early links to existing planning system supports or a wider range of national actors and to hinders planning. Selected operations national development planning, as well in Tanzania, Ghana, Senegal, Uganda, as to international actors focused on Ecuador and Costa Rica are developing longer-term support. protection and solutions strategies, 150 UNHCR Global Report 2015 BUILDING BETTER FUTURES Tanzania is implementing an integration planning, including with the support strategy for some 160,000 newly of the Solutions Alliance. The strategy naturalized Tanzanians and those former developed in Zambia supports a Burundian refugees whose processes are comprehensive solution including a ongoing. The strategy is also exploring strong legal element, as well as ties how emergency and longer term to broader development planning in responses for other populations can be settlement areas. In Somalia, the goal better designed to support local growth of the national group is to use the and multiple solutions over the medium national development plan and support to longer-term, complementing ongoing from international donors and technical large-scale resettlement of the Congolese experts to improving the inclusion of refugee population. refugee and IDP returnees in national development plans and priorities. Uganda is focusing on enhancing self- Protection and solutions planning in other reliance and resilience and supporting regions is also leading to approaches that a range of pathways towards legal will be formalized in the coming years. solutions, including resettlement, as an integral part of national development and regional planning. Costa Rica and Ecuador are both Seeds for Solutions addressing the links between economic self-suciency and eligibility for Through Seeds for Solutions funding, more than naturalisation and Ghana is exploring how 20 UNHCR operations have been provided financial refugees from ECOWAS member states and technical support in 2015 and are currently applying can benefit from regional agreements solutions-oriented interventions in their programming, in the search for definitive solutions. including in the documentation of legal solutions; support In Senegal, the last elements of a for greater self-reliance; skills training; infrastructure comprehensive approach to solutions for investments to support social cohesion and the inclusion Mauritanian refugees will require regional of persons of concern to UNHCR in national systems and commitment but the strategy aims for other key contributions to comprehensive solutions. In the definitive solutions for the people caught cases of Niger, Sri Lanka and Somalia, Seeds for Solutions in a generation-long situation. facilitated the launching of programmes that were later able to continue independently of the initiative’s support. Other operations are also working towards comprehensive solutions UNHCR Global Report 2015 151 BUILDING BETTER FUTURES UNHCR/Roger Arnold UNHCR/Roger COMPLEMENTARY PATHWAYS TO PROTECTION AND SOLUTIONS UNHCR works in partnership with Complementary pathways may not be governments and others to identify and specifically based on the protection share information about and, where risks faced by refugees, but can oer necessary, to adapt legislation, policy, protection and solutions for refugees and existing administrative systems and serve as an important expression that can facilitate refugees’ search for of solidarity and responsibility sharing. protection and solutions. Humanitarian Such pathways may include: family pathways, such as resettlement and other reunification for extended family humanitarian admission programmes, members that do not fall within private sponsorship programmes for resettlement criteria, points-based and individuals in humanitarian need, some labour migration and labour mobility special humanitarian visas, and medical schemes and academic scholarships evacuation are designed to provide and apprenticeships. protection and solutions for refugees at risk. 152 UNHCR Global Report 2015 BUILDING BETTER FUTURES UNHCR has been exploring the possibility announced additional resettlement of alternate pathways to solutions for quotas in 2015 specifically for Syrian some time, including through formal refugees, who made up the majority of studies in the MERCOSUR and ECOWAS arrivals to Europe. regions exploring how schemes that permit nationals to move and work freely UNHCR resettlement submissions could oer secure futures for refugees. to resettlement countries in 2015 In addition to new opportunities exceeded 133,000 – a 28 per cent opening for safe labour mobility and increase on 2014. The number of education schemes, some West African resettlement States also grew, with Italy States are looking at how the ECOWAS and the Republic of Korea announcing framework and their own national laws pilot resettlement programmes which could oer facilitated pathways to began in 2015. permanent residency and, in some cases, naturalization. The organization’s submissions from Africa exceeded 38,800 individuals in 2015 – a 147 per cent increase since Ensuring protection through 2012. Almost 90 per cent of the total resettlement resettlement submissions from Africa in 2015 were made to the United States. In 2015, global resettlement needs exceeded 1 million places for the first Resettlement out of Asia continued time. The number of refugees and to decrease; however there was one migrants arriving in mixed flows in Europe notable milestone during the year: the increased dramatically, prompting a surge number of Bhutanese refugees resettled of political and public interest in refugee out of Nepal since 2007 reached more and migration issues. Many countries than 100,000. “Globally, resettlement continued to play a crucial protection role in UNHCR's response to forced displacement. More than 81,000 refugees departed for resettlement in 2015.” - High Commissioner Filippo Grandi UNHCR Global Report 2015 153 BUILDING BETTER FUTURES From the Middle East, North Africa The Oce continued to focus on and Turkey, some 70,000 people upholding the integrity of asylum were submitted for resettlement and systems throughout the year, as well as humanitarian admission during 2015, reviewing and revising its relevant policy including more than 52,000 Syrian and operational guidelines in order to refugees. The Syria Core Group has reduce the risk of fraud. A new policy and played a pivotal role in ensuring guidelines – to be issued in 2016 – are continued support for resettlement expected to provide a comprehensive from host States in the region, by framework for addressing fraud and demonstrating that large-scale include prevention, detection, and resettlement can be an eective means investigation measures aimed at all of sharing responsibility for refugee stages of case processing,